Forum:YANI: 5 new artifacts, comments wanted

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I have an idea for five new artifacts (for which I've actually coded a patch against SporkHack), but I'm looking for the community's input on their abilities. Here they are:

Luck Blade: Neutral short sword. It acts as a luckstone of equal beatitude when carried, gets +d3 to hit and +d4 to damage all monsters. Additionally, on each hit, if the roll of a d20 is less than your luck, it inflicts an additional 2d8 damage. If the enemy wields it against you, the test is reversed so that the extra damage gets more likely the less lucky you are.

Quicksilver: Unaligned silver short sword, gets +d5 to hit and +d6 to damage all monsters and confers speed when wielded.

Spineseeker: Chaotic rogue stiletto, gets +d5 to hit and +d6 to damage all monsters, and deals double damage against fleeing foes. Would be the first sac gift for rogues. A rogue's backstab damage isn't doubled.

Ravenbrand: neutral scimitar, +d5 to hit, +d6 to damage all foes. On hit, there's a 50% chance to blind and a separate 50% chance to slow enemies. Blinded enemies might (20% chance) turn to flee, while slowed enemies might (50% chance) be "lacerated by barbed chains of shadow" and take d10 damage. The damage may still occur even if the enemy was already slowed.

Quicksilver: I like it; in fact, SLASH'EM has a similar-themed artifact, Quick Blade, which I always thought should grant speed. Personally, I'd like to see an artifact short sword that provides more than speed (i.e. gives you a base speed of 24 or so, or better, always attacks twice), since speed is quite supersedable. Of course, one could argue having the speed boots slot free would let you use jumping boots, but that's a kinda iffy benefit.

Spineseeker:Too weak for the late game, but makes a good first sacrifice gift. Perhaps it could have a bonus for being thrown?

Blasphemy:A little weak, I'd think. Also, cross-aligned damage isn't very useful for chaotics, as the vast majority of chaotic monsters are always hostile. Thus, anyone would need a second weapon for things like liches. Also, stunning monsters doesn't do very much (much less than to the player).

Ravenbrand:Would give scimitars a point for being in the game, which is a definite plus. The slowing effect would become much less useful in the late game, as it has to get past monster MR; I don't know if the extra d10 damage would still apply then. I'd probably increase the base damage bonus though, maybe to d8 or d10. Make it at least as good as Excalibur, which is about the weakest artifact I'll consider using into the late game. -Ion frigate 13:26, July 4, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback.

My patch makes a lot of other changes, but a few of them are relevant here - I've removed trident skill, and put tridents under spear, and collapsed scimitar and saber skills into one skill called "curved sword". I also moved katanas to the curved sword skill. Without these changes it seems Blasphemy is mostly useless, true enough. I'm thinking of tweaking the others as so:

Quicksilver: I'm thinking of adding an Extra_fast property that this would grant, which would 24 movement points, or possibly making it so that landing a hit has a 50% chance of attacking a second time with Quicksilver only. (so that a high-damage offhander doesn't get swung again, which would be probably too strong)

Luck Blade: Might change the luck test a bit so that the extra damage is somewhat more likely. (maybe if d20 < luck+4?) Incidentally, this Luck Blade was inspired by SLASH'EM's Luckblade, but I thought that one wasn't interesting enough.

Reading all this for vanilla, thow out at least as many junk artifacts to make room. Also, you might want to make your artifacts stronger. Finally, I like the idea of non-weapon artifacts as in SLASH'EM. Tjr 19:16, July 4, 2010 (UTC)

I know it's supposed to be magic, but a freakin' sword making you able to run faster doesn't make any sense to me. Speaking not of game balance, just logic, I'd say perhaps something like the ability to backstab ("The quick blade strikes from behind!"), or to parry. Parry basically removing the monsters next attack (like daze). That'd be pretty hard to code, though, I figure. ("The quick blade parries the hill orc's blow!"). Or striking twice, as you said, for a quirky double damage. ("You hit the hill orc. The quick blade strikes twice!"). Feagradze 17:11, July 5, 2010 (UTC)

Blasphemy could use a name. It's way to close to a word. Makes referring to it confusing. I was thinking you could name it after Poseidon, which would be great for scripting it's backstory (like the NetHack artifacts that all had a book quote of some kind). I couldn't find the name of his trident, but the myth was that he used it to create whirlpools and various other sea maladies when mad. This could be the explanation for the double damage, too. "You thrust the trident. A gyser slams into the hill orc!" Feagradze 17:29, July 5, 2010 (UTC)

Ooo! Could give it an #invoke effect. Was thinking d500 turns of conflict, or having the effect of a wand of lightning (but perhaps with the damage of a magic horn). "Black clouds swirl around the trident. In which direction?" or "You hear the rumble of thunder. In which direction?" "Lightning arcs from the trident!". Or maybe more correctly to the legend, an effect like a drum of earthquakes. Though that would be pretty useless.Feagradze 17:49, July 5, 2010 (UTC)